Aury moves up to the corridor intersection and takes some time to peer down each hallway. The heavy doors you see in each hallway are solid metal doors, perhaps over a sheet of stone or masonry. Much like the previous doors they are set into the stone itself and done so quite well, providing a fairly tight seal. Some masterwork has gone into fitting of the doors.
Aury did not get close enough to see much more in terms of locks and there is always the fear of traps.
Shaeyl reverses to follow Aury, Sly, would you like to lead? See if the builders left any more surprises? Ptery growls as they pass Sly. now, now, he was just impatient, no reason to chew through his pack straps. Shaeyl pats Ptery, calming him down.
Shaeyl has been marking the corridors with his chalk, small symbols to note which way they came from. Shaeyl moves up to Aury I'd suggest two options, walk around and note all the doors, or put your hand on one wall and walk around, opening each door you come to. Harder to get lost that way.
Once they were stopped for a moment, Shaeyl pulled out his spellbook, opened it to an empty page in the back, and drew a simple map of what they had seen so far.
Shaeyl decides to back up a step and check the door to the north. After checking for traps before the door, and on the door.
"Wow, these tunnels go everywhere! I wonder what this is all for. But as much as I want to explore this, we should set a limit for our time here - there are still the raiders we need to deal with, and this will still be here when we return."
Well, let's see... We've been out of touch with reality for 10,000 years. Our beloved father is missing. We know pretty much nothing about this world other than what has been told to us by a group of primitives that attacked first, then some godawful big dinosaur god, followed by the obvious self interest of some dwarves that have no issue with sending strangers out on the sharp end of the stick as a vanguard against creatures of alleged evil. Did I miss anything?
Shaeyl finishes his check for traps, running straight, and head on towards obviously superior opponents, unless you think you could take on a giant single-handedly? Anyway, it would be sure folly. I for one don't mind checking this place out thoroughly. It might,
Shaeyl stands and turns, ticking off his fingers one at a time; one, reveal more about this world and its history, two have hidden treasures, hopefully weapons, that will help us out; three, make for a good redoubt for ourselves.
And that's why I don't mind loosing a few hours to check this place out.
"That was lots of big words."
Shaeyl scours the floor, and walls and then the door as they approach it. He looks it over carefully as Ptery looks on, perched on his shoulder, the creature's big eyeballs blinking as it tilts its head to and fro.
Shaeyl determines the floor and walls to be safe. The door on the other hand seems to contain some sort of booby trap again. It would appear the door is rigged with subtle plates, sort of vertical pressure plates, that when pushed trigger Something Bad (tm).
"Ah. Maybe we just go to another hallway for now, unless you think you can disarm it."
Shaeyl pulls out her tools, I'd suggest backing around the corner...
Grubgullet reflexively forces the stone of the cavern up to shield himself and his friends.
Shaeyl works at the plates and tries to get under them to disable them and whatever bad thing they trigger, and he believes he is close, but is just unable to get his tools where he needs to perform a few key adjustments. Luckily he doesn't set anything off.
Once it's safe, Grubgullet breaks down the sheet of rock he had summoned to let everyone pass.
rinse and repeat
This time Shaeyl concentrates and struggles a bit more to get the trap plates disabled. He slips his tiny hand into the contraption and reaches just a bit further than his previous attempt, grimacing as forcing his hand in further scrapes some skin off. As he reaches his tool to what he believes a trigger wire and spring, he hears a click and a 'sproing'. A bead of sweat trickles down his brow as his heart skips a beat, but after a moment he feels he has disabled the trap as no death and destruction seem to rain down on the group.
"Is it open?"
It's open!
Shaeyl puts his tools away and stands up, now would someone leave a bunch of active traps in a hidden complex for giggles? Well, I might, but...
The group breathes a sign of relief as Shaeyl announces the door is safely disarmed and unlocked. After the previous near disaster, everyone was on a bit on edge. Catching their breaths in the stuffy old air, they peer into the chamber ahead as the door swings slowly open. You step in cautiously just a few feet.
It appears to be some sort of antechamber. You have seen and heard of these before. They usually are attached to another chamber and serve as a companion room for a burial chamber. The room has some burial motifs carved in stone facing mortared to the room. In each corner of the room is a single bronze urn. Each of the four urns appears capped and sealed with some substance you suspect may be some sort of pitch, sap, wax or some similar substance. Time has hardened the substance to a hard resinous state. Each urn is also etched with a small amount of artistry showing some sort of important person engaged in hunting and sport.
A tunnel leads from the back of the room and turns shortly thereafter.
At this distance it is hard to see the details. Definitely humanoid, probably human. You aren't familiar with the style or design or motifs.
Sllyyy Shaeyl calls out, a slight sing-song to his voice, do you recognize those designs? Shaeyl points at the urns across the room.
Sly approaches the urns but nothing weird or dangerous happens. He stands in the center and scratches his chin. What now...?
Aury keeps a close eye out, listening, sniffing the air. She senses nothing strange at the moment.
Sly you notice that each urn has a slightly different motif. Each one has some people engaged in various activities, sporting or noble events. There does not seem to be any one particular person depicted as the primary character in these renditions.
Shaeyl looks into the room from the other side of the doorway, anything jump out at you?
"Huh, no. Seems strange that they would trap a room with just urns in it. Is there anything in them?"
The urns are sealed and would take a chisel or dagger or some tool to chip away the hardened resin that was used to seal the lids on the urns.
There is of course another hall that leads from this odd room.
Open one, or leave them?
"I guess leave them. Maybe there's something important in the next room."
Aury'tss heads through to the next room.
Shaeyl follows Aury, You taking the next one? First to miss a trap buys the next round?
The group heads through the room with the urns and steps down the tunnel, and sees a door. Aury finds no traps on the door and actually it is unlocked. With some trepidation she cautiously opens it and luckily no one dies.
Beyond the door is another chamber. This appears to be a more formal burial chamber. In the classic sense, there is a big stone slab with a sarcophagus on it. There is probably a body in it, and if the tales are true, as soon as you open the lid, bad stuff usually happens.
The sarcophagus is fairly ornate. Carved by an obvious master craftsman, the stone has been worked and is still quite smoothe and preserved from time. It has forest motifs on the sides and lid.
Shaeyl watches as Aury barely looks the door over before pushing it open. Come on! Seriously, you barely checked it!
Sighing in exasperation, Shaeyl walks around the sarcophagus, looking at the motifs and for traps!
Shaeyl examines the forest motif on the sarcophagus and he carefully looks for traps, first visually, then feeling around gently and inspecting for hidden releases, triggers, wires, pressure buttons or any number of life threatening tricks.
He finds nothing.
The motifs are largely leaves and vines intertwining along the sides and over the lid. Larger blossoms, with 5 petals and a central part are in a row of three down the center of the lid. You are not sure what flower is represented, as it could be any of dozens. It could also just be an artist's stylized rendition.
The lid looks heavy, solid and in place for a long long time.
"Why would a cemetary need to be hidden so well?"
"Maybe there's lots of shinies in there."
"Well, we could open it to find out. Well. Not me, but maybe Grub or Sly."
"Okay!"
Grub squeezes past all the others, and tries to move the lid.
Grubgullet steps in an puts his hands on either side of the lid. The lid itself is just sitting on the base, and not sealed, so its merely a matter of sliding it off. It just happens to weigh two tons or more. Grubgullet grunts and then the lid slides with a groaning scraping noise of stone on stone that echoes through the underground rooms. The lid moves slowly and he lowers it to the floor at an angle, although trying to be quiet at this point is pointless.
Inside you see the ancient, husk of a body. Mostly skeletalized, pieces of desiccated leathery flesh still cling to part of the bone. Debris, and accumulated detritus from vermin and other things that managed to find their way into the sarcophagus and feast on the dead body ages before have left their remains in here, but for the most part you can make it out as you shine your light into it.
The body is buried in considerable jewelry. One particular piece, a large jewel on a pectoral chest piece, is quite attractive.
Everyone waits to see if the body will leap up and attack, but nothing like that happens. Perhaps the tales every other adventurer has told aren't always true.
"Yup! Shinies!"
Shaeyl casts detect magic.
Shaeyl beams his detect magic forward. Round 1, yup there is magic.
Sly you notice something shadowy in the corner. it looks sinister...
You also hear noises coming from somewhere else in the 'dungeon'.